Hakluyt & Company and the Clinton/Trump scandals

By John Donovan

Regular visitors to this website will be aware of my frequent references to the sinister London based spy firm Hakluyt & Co and its close connection with its ethically challenged client of more than two decades, Royal Dutch Shell.

Our own dealings with Hakluyt in relation to Shell undercover activity against us was so extraordinary that nothing about Hakluyt and its connections and activities would surprise us any more.

An article published today reveals that Hakluyt is a player in the shady events and individuals surrounding former U.S.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against the equally repulsive Donald J. Trump. (The article mentions the infamous Christopher Steel dossier).

Extract

The link between Clinton and Hakluyt is ironic considering the former secretary of state’s strong commitment to liberal Democratic environmental causes. Hakluyt’s record includes being caught planting spies in Greenpeace and other environmental groups on behalf of energy giants British Petroleum (BP) and Shell.

Hakluyt is aptly described in the article as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers…”

Some former “MI6 people” – as described by Ben van Beurden in a wire tapped conversation – were recruited by Shell (namely Guy Colegate and John Copleston) and have ended up being charged with criminal offences in Italy in relation to their involvement in the OPL 245 Shell/Eni Nigerian Corruption scandal.

Printed below is an English translation of an article by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad suggesting that future costs for the *NAM may be higher than the benefits and if so, NAM joint owners Shell/Exxon may stop producing from the Groningen gas field and ‘de-book’ the reserves.

Rising costs and declining production end gas extraction by NAM in Groningen into a realistic scenario, think Lucia van Geuns and Jilles van den Beukel.

After the earthquake in Zeerijp (January 8) a plan is now being worked out to reduce the extraction of Groningen gas. Minister Wiebes (Economic Affairs and Climate, VVD) aims to reduce production as quickly as possible from 21.6 to 12 billion cubic meters per year.

He has informed 200 large-scale users – including companies in the chemical and food sector – that they have four years to switch from this Groningen gas.

As a result of the TNO scenarios from 2017 on the future of gas in the Netherlands, it was noted that the moment at which the Netherlands can turn a net exporter into a net importer of gas was estimated too soon. Now, however, it seems quite possible that this will take place around 2021 (the most conservative TNO scenario).

Nevertheless, ‘Zeerijp’ can hardly be called a surprise. From the Groningen extraction plan it can be concluded that the annual probability of such an earthquake of magnitude 3.4 or larger is estimated at approximately 25 percent. The question is how well the Netherlands is prepared for all possible scenarios. Until now, we have always been raided by events since the quake at Huizinge (2012).

Not only the uncertainty in the future seismic intensity and the social unrest in Groningen play a role. We also think that it is not a given that the shareholders of NAM (Shell and ExxonMobil, each for half) will continue gas production here in the long term. You can think of ten or twenty years, but also one or two years.

Estimates of future costs are now rapidly rising. The amount of seismic energy released per unit of gas produced has been gradually increasing for decades. It is likely that this trend will continue.

At NAM, the focus is now shifting from keeping production and profit up to the level in the short term, in order to be able to cope with it under the best possible conditions.

The relatively conservative risk assessment no longer remains in the background. NAM is now clear about it: the only way to completely exclude an earthquake like Zeerijp is to reduce production to zero. With a halving of production, however, the probability of such a quake, according to the NAM, will not exceed roughly halved.

Shell and ExxonMobil are not charitable institutions. As soon as stopping for them becomes financially more attractive than continuing production, they will stop. On the one hand, it will depend on how gas prices and production develop, on the other hand on prognoses about the costs of damage, depreciation and strengthening of houses.

For the NAM (which receives about 10 percent of the proceeds and carries 36 percent of the costs), this turning point is reached much earlier than for the state. That the profit distribution of NAM to shareholders has gradually dropped to zero in recent years is a wiped sign.

At this moment Groningen still has a large amount of proven reserves in the books of Shell and ExxonMobil. Proven reserves in this field – roughly a quarter of the original reserves – require a reasonable certainty that they can be produced. If a substantial part of these proven reserves is written off, this indicates that the point of exit has come closer.

Given our great dependence on gas, this is not a tempting scenario for the minister. The concession seems, in the current situation, unsaleable to another gas producer. Possibly the only way to continue gas production is a takeover by the state. In practice, this would only be possible if the NAM continues to function with the state in the current way – for example via the public company EBN – as the sole shareholder.

It is time to prepare ourselves for such scenarios.

Lucia van Geuns is energy consultant at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS); Jilles van den Beukel is a geophysicist and energy analyst. Both previously worked for Shell.

London based rights group, Amnesty International (AI), says Royal Dutch Shel and Italian oil multinational, Eni, might have wrongly attributed 89 oil spills in Nigeria’s Delta to theft and sabotage. According to AI, 46 of the pollution incidents were triggered by Shel and 43 by Eni. “Amnesty International researchers have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they were caused by ‘operational’ faults,” the London-based group said in a report released yesterday.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK MAR 16, 2018

London based rights group, Amnesty International (AI), says Royal Dutch Shel and Italian oil multinational, Eni, might have wrongly attributed 89 oil spills in Nigeria’s Delta to theft and sabotage.

According to AI, 46 of the pollution incidents were triggered by Shel and 43 by Eni.

“Amnesty International researchers have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they were caused by ‘operational’ faults,” the London-based group said in a report released yesterday.

“Of these, 46 are from Shell and 43 are from Eni. If confirmed, this would mean that dozens of affected communities have not received the compensation that they deserve,” the report read.

At a petroleum summit held in Abuja, the Nigerian capital in February, the chairman of Shell subsidiaries in Nigeria, Osagie Okumbor, said less than 10 percent of the oil spills that happen in the Delta is caused by operational failures: “You and I living in that part of the world know that when you actually look at it, less than 10 percent, maybe five percent of these spills are as a result of operational failures. Well over 90 percent of what we are seeing is a result of theft and sabotage to facilities., “

“This is this biggest issue that confronts us in the Delta today. In 2016 many of us in this country saw what happened in the western delta when our export line was sabotaged. This is one of the biggest reasons why this country went into recession, close 300,000 barrels per day of oil was taken out at a time when oil prices were at historic lows and it cost us well over $100 million to actually replace that line.

Since 2011, Shel has reported 1,010 spills and Eni 820 since 2014. AI’s figure of 89 falsely labeled spills, amounts to 4.8% of the reported number.

AI researcher Mark Dummett says based on evidence from their research platform Decoders, the companies are negligent and do not respond hastily to spill reports: “Shell and Eni claim they are doing everything they can to prevent oil spills but Decoders found that the companies often ignore reports for months on end. The Niger Delta is one of the most polluted places on earth and it beggars belief that the companies responsible are still displaying this level of negligence.”

The natives in places where spills occur are usually hesitant to allow the pollution to be mapped. They wait for the sludge to increase so that they can get a bigger payday.

Aaron Sayne from the Natural Resource Governing Institute, a body that advises companies and governments on environmental issues told Reuters that there are no good and bad guys in oil spill clean-ups.

“There’s no good guy here, everybody’s kind of bad. I’m sure the companies don’t do all that they can to get to these places. But then they also have genuine grievances and genuine difficulties dealing with these communities”.

“When spills become an opportunity to make money, your clean-up becomes really tough.”